Memory becomes something we outsource via tools such as iPhone, Google and Facebook.

Digital photos or videos record our private histories and become autobiographies viewed, shared and consumed via Facebook, Flickr or Pinterest.

Three simple stages of memory

Associate Professor of Cognitive Science at Macquaire University Amanda Barnier said memory had three simple stages that form the foundation of our most basic activities such as using a knife and fork, writing and sport.

"Encoding, that is how we get information in, storage, which is how we organise it once it's in the mind and retrieval, how we get it out to use it," she said.

"There are strategies we can use to make that encoding more likely and efficient. These are called mnemonics, like little tricks; it's not magic, it's pyschology of how memory works," she said.

Ms Barnier said visualising items on a list can help you remember or code bits of information in a song or word.

"Another trick is 'chunking' where, say, in a phone number, rather than read all the numbers, you remember three chunks of the numbers; it's easier to remember in little blocks," she said.

Ms Barnier is impressed by the feats of memory champions such as Mr Ali.

"They are champions, like the very best tennis players we have who play at Wimbledon.

"But there has been no research into these champions; whether they have above average memories or simply use certain strategies to the nth degree," he said.

Jennifer Goddard, a co-founder of the Buzan Centre in Australia and a senior judge of the World Memory Championships said Australia had six regular competitors and, over the past nine years, has had 25 competitors.

She said it all started in London when Tony Buzan, an author of 102 books on the brain and memory, co-founded the first World Memory Championships that took place as Memoriad '91, on October 26 1991.

"Many people ask what's the point of these championships but millions will be glued to the Olympics and, when you look at sports like the 400 metres, they just go round and round. What's the point of that?" she said.

Ms Goddard who runs a business improving people's memory said the championships entail 10 memory events.

99 faces test

An example of an event is contestants being shown a page of 99 faces with first names and surname. The names are removed and the faces mixed around. Then contestants score a point each for every name they remember.

Other categories include remembering a deck of cards randomly shuffled, spoken numbers and binary digits.

Ms Goddard said the world champion was Wang Feng from China.

"It's taken very seriously in China," she said. "It's seen as a core skill for business and life; we all rely on memory so these competitions are huge in many countries.

"Wang Feng even gets financial support from the Chinese government," she said.

And, like in any sport, intense rivalries exist between competitors, especially the superpowers of the memory game.

Mr Ali said some of the traditional rivalries had been made fiercer by the advent of prize money.

"The Germans are very competitive and there is a strong rivalry with China. Before that, it was with the UK.

"But now China has come out of nowhere and is destroying everyone. They only started competing a couple of years ago and are seriously dominating," he said.

"We have the talent here but Australians are more conservative in their approach. We hold back from these sort of activities," he said.

The Australian Memory Championship is expected to be held in Melbourne in September this year as a build-up to the World Memory Championship in October in a yet-to-be-decided country.